Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to biodegradable plastic, more specifically biodegradable plastic manufactured from a high percentage of recyclable plastic.
Description of the Related Art
Plastics have become an indispensable part our society due to their wide range of uses, relative light weight, and low cost. Plastics include any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids that are moldable. Plastics are typically organic polymers of high molecular mass. They are usually synthetic, most commonly derived from petrochemicals. However, their ubiquity has also come with problems. Their stability makes disposal of plastic products a problem. They often litter the landscape for years due to their stability. Two divergent approaches have been employed to attempt to solve the problem, namely recycling and biodegradable additives.
Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastic and reprocessing the material into useful products, sometimes completely different in form from their original state. For instance, this could mean melting down soft drink bottles and then molding them as plastic chairs and tables. Typically a plastic is not recycled into the same type of plastic. Even during the typical recycling process, when different types of plastics are melted together, they tend to phase-separate and settle in layers. The phase boundaries cause structural weakness in the resulting material, meaning that polymer blends are useful in only limited applications.
The second approach is biodegradable additives. Biodegradable plastics are plastics that are capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms. Two basic classes of biodegradable plastics exist: bioplastics, whose components are derived from renewable raw materials and plastics made from petrochemicals with biodegradable additives which enhance biodegradation.
It would be advantageous to employ a product and process which can incorporate both approaches in order to minimize unnecessary disposal of plastic. For the above reasons, it would be advantageous to create a biodegradable plastic manufactured from a high percentage of recyclable plastic feedstock.